


vincent (starry, starry night)

by mybelovedcheshire



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: A LEGIT TAG FOR ONCE I AM AGOG I AM AGHAST, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, modern!AU, title is utterly unrelated to anything except that jehan is beautiful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 00:04:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybelovedcheshire/pseuds/mybelovedcheshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Courfeyrac starts to worry when he hasn't heard back from Jehan in a couple of hours. Cosette -- concerned and a little fed up -- insists that Courfeyrac go to Jehan's apartment to check up on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	vincent (starry, starry night)

Eight text messages in two hours wasn’t excessive for Courfeyrac. 

Actually, forty text messages in ten minutes wouldn’t really have been excessive for him (as Combeferre regrettably knew) -- but that didn’t make him feel any less pathetic as he sent Jehan a ninth, and silently begged the Universe for a reply. 

He put his phone down on the table, and waited. 

Cosette chewed on the inside of her lip to keep from frowning. She was sitting across from Courfeyrac in the little kitchen in his and Marius’s apartment. Technically she was reading, but she hadn’t turned the page in over an hour -- as usual, Courfeyrac was proving to be a massive distraction. 

Obviously it didn’t help that she was reading Steinbeck. (And only because she had a paper due for a class that she very much didn’t want to fail.) Her concern for her friends would have outweighed anything, but ‘Of Mice and Men’ wasn’t even putting up a fight. 

Courfeyrac started drumming his fingers impatiently (and slightly manically) on the table top. Cosette sighed. 

“Courf--”

“You think I’m being a nag,” Courfeyrac interrupted. “You think I’m being ridiculous.” He didn’t look up from his phone. 

She did a little, but she wasn’t going to admit it. Cosette shook her head. “Why don’t you just go over there?” She asked. “At least then you’ll know-- he’s probably just lost his phone or something.”

Courfeyrac’s expression darkened. 

Sending nine text messages in -- he paused to check his watch -- two hours and twelve minutes was obsessive. Going to Jehan’s apartment because he hadn’t gotten a single text back in all that time was stalkerish. 

“He won’t care,” Cosette told him, reading his expression. “I’m serious -- and at least then you won’t be...”

“Panicking?” Courfeyrac asked with a slight whine. 

Cosette hesitated -- but she did nod. “Yeah.”

Courfeyrac took a deep breath through his nose. He was trying to be calm -- really. 

He checked his watch again.

Cosette closed her eyes and went back to chewing on her lip. 

After two minutes -- Coufeyrac had started tapping his fingers more incessantly -- she stood up, and bluntly told him: “Get out.”

Courfeyrac looked up at her. His sweet, hazel eyes were round with worry, and sadness, and confusion. 

Cosette marched over to the door and grabbed his coat from the hook. “You’re going to check on him,” she explained in a tone that left no room for an argument. “You’re just going to go grey if you sit here.”

Courfeyrac rolled out of his chair immediately. (He was uncharacteristically worried, but he was still Courfeyrac.) Cosette handed him his coat. 

“Go. I’m sure he’s fine, but you’re better off knowing than wondering.”

Courfeyrac wailed, thanked her, and fled. 

Fifteen minutes later Courfeyrac knocked loudly on Jehan’s door. 

There was no answer. 

That was the moment that real, potentially life-threatening panic set in. 

Two hours and a half hours ago, Jehan had sent him a text, telling Courfeyrac that he was going to his favourite café to read. It was probably an open invitation -- but while Courfeyrac was undeniably an extrovert who craved companionship, Jehan had a tendency to wobble between the E and the I side of things. Instead of just sprinting over, Courfeyrac had sent him a reply, asking if Jehan would mind terribly if he joined him. 

Jehan hadn’t responded. 

And two hours later, Jehan hadn’t responded to any of the messages Courfeyrac had sent him. That, frankly, was bizarre. Jehan texted Courfeyrac as much as Courfeyrac texted Jehan, which was about six times as much as they texted any of their other friends (combined). 

Even on the poet’s moodiest days, he always had something to say to Courfeyrac. 

So, Courfeyrac -- surprisingly optimistic, and light-hearted Courfeyrac -- had started to worry. 

But his earlier distress could not have held a candle to the nausea he felt now. 

He had stopped by the café on his way over. According to a serving girl, the lovely little poet with the ribbons in his hair hadn’t been there at all that day. She knew him -- he liked the table in the corner, and always asked for a croissant to nibble on while he wrote. But no -- no, she hadn’t seen him since yesterday. 

Courfeyrac leaned against the jamb of Jehan’s door and struggled not to hyperventilate. 

He gasped quietly as he considered what to do -- he knew he had to tell someone (inevitably Combeferre), but he also felt an overwhelming urge to just sit down and cry.

The door opened. 

Courfeyrac looked up sharply. 

Jehan -- a very bruised and battered Jehan -- looked back at him. 

Courfeyrac stared; his mouth hung open in shock. 

Jehan didn’t look away. Dark purple bruises bloomed across his cheek. His lower lip was swollen, and standing upright seemed to be a struggle -- but he clutched the door, and he faced Courfeyrac without even wincing. 

“What happened?” Courfeyrac breathed -- still aghast. He was fighting the urge to run inside and hug Jehan until he suffocated. 

The wounded little poet took a shaky breath, and stepped back. “Come in,” he murmured. 

Courfeyrac immediately did, shutting the door for him. As soon as it was closed, he shifted his hands to Jehan, carefully resting them on his hips, in the hopes that it wouldn’t cause him any pain. 

Clearly Jehan didn’t care, because he closed his eyes and fell against Courfeyrac’s chest. Courfeyrac wrapped him up as tenderly as he could. “I got mugged,” Jehan explained quietly. “They took my wallet, my phone -- everything. Even my notebook.”

“Holy fuck,” Courfeyrac mumbled, burying his face against Jehan’s neck. “God, Jehan, I’m so sorry.” He was afraid to hug Jehan any tighter, but he lovingly and gingerly rubbed the little poet’s back. 

But Jehan answered: “Don’t be,” and Courfeyrac had to take a step back. 

“What?” He asked, dumb-founded. “They beat the crap out of you.” Courfeyrac brushed his fingers over a cut on Jehan’s cheek. 

Jehan would have shook his head if he’d had the energy. “It’s not their fault, Courf.”

Courfeyrac stared. 

Jehan licked his swollen lip carefully. 

Courfeyrac couldn’t take it -- he scooped Jehan up and carried him to his bed, where he had clearly been before Courfeyrac had come hammering on his door. “I don’t understand,” Courfeyrac said, as he kicked his shoes off and dropped his coat on the floor. 

Jehan curled up, and Courfeyrac slid onto the bed beside him, wrapping him up again. 

“It’s not them,” Jehan told him, resting his head against Courfeyrac’s chest. Courfeyrac lovingly brushed his fingers through Jehan’s hair. It was the most comforting thing he could think to do. “It’s society. If we lived in a better world, this wouldn’t happen.”

“But they--”

“Didn’t think they had a choice,” Jehan answered. 

“They beat you up!” Courfeyrac protested. He was terrified, and he was in awe. He’d always known that Jehan was the best person he’d ever met -- but there was a difference between knowing it and being faced with the reality of it. 

“They were afraid.”

Courfeyrac didn’t reply. 

He didn’t know what to say. 

Jehan breathed in and out slowly. He had closed his eyes, and grabbed a fistful of Courfeyrac’s shirt. “Thank you for coming here. I wanted you-- I would have gone to your place, but I couldn’t--” Courfeyrac shushed him gently, and kissed his face. He had understood the moment he’d seen Jehan. There was no reason (no matter how much he’d worried) for his little poet, as fierce as he was, to have stumbled the distance in that state. 

Jehan made a quiet noise of gratitude. 

“I’m just glad you’re safe,” Courfeyrac whispered. 

And then he shifted, digging in his pocket for his phone. Jehan opened his eyes. There was pain in his expression -- but a curious glint too, and that made Courfeyrac smile. 

“I might have... panicked to Cosette,” he explained sheepishly as he typed out a quick text. 

Happiness tugged at the corners of Jehan’s mouth. 

Courfeyrac dropped his phone when he was finished and slipped his arm around Jehan again. “I mean, really panicked...”

Jehen nuzzled him, stoically ignoring the soreness in every inch of his body. “I love you too, Courf,” he answered. 

Courfeyrac grinned. 

But after a short pause, Courfeyrac added: “So, I take it you have wounds that need kissing... I mean, I’m not a doctor or anything--”

“God, yes,” Jehan groaned. 

Courfeyrac beamed and peeled away from him. He stripped Jehan’s shirt off with practised ease. Jehan’s pants quickly followed, and when Courfeyrac had his little poet completely naked and sprawled out in bed underneath him, he methodically went over every inch of skin in search of bruises and cuts and scrapes to caress. 

Jehan was lovely, and little, and sweet -- but he wasn’t delicate. He had never been delicate, and he’d made that clear to Courfeyrac the first time they met. 

And then again, the first time they’d kissed. 

And every day thereafter. 

He might have been very battered, and the littlest touches might have hurt -- but Courfeyrac kisses had a habit of making everything better. And if he had to endure a little pain to enjoy them...

...then so be it.


End file.
